C4 Concepts for Archi

Started by cybye, October 26, 2021, 21:41:57 PM

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cybye

Actually I'm not really sure if it makes sense, yet.

I found dev-teams are loving their boxes and arrows (and such database symbols), and they are loving to leave them behind right in the moment they placed them. Anything more complex magically increases resistance in a parabolic way. So, I'm ok with C4 incl. such known database symbols, and (with the selfish hope) the mission of C4 to have it layered (will silently creep into their minds and my model), and not all into one throw-away diagram.

JBs mapping and the specialization feature now resulted in https://github.com/cybye/C4Concepts4Archi

C4 is currently easy to explain, importing it into Archi and using it as a menu a little harder, why you cannot drag and drop from the left into your diagram - sigh, "model, different, separation ... " it's accepted, it's accepted.

Guys, thanks for the custom icons!

Chris


Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie

Hi,

Thank you for sharing.

I was planning to provide a similar model template for C4 (easier to use than having to import using coArchi), but you did it first ;-)

I've had a look at your model and have two remarks:
  • Original C4 figures are hard to use in Archi because being custom images in full covering mode, users will have to make sure the concepts are of the right aspect ratio, or else parts will be missing. From a UX point of view this is far from perfect. So, as Simon Brown himself writes that C4 model doesn't prescribe any particular notation, I would suggest (and was planning) to use small custom icons on the top right corner.
  • You can't use flow as this is not the right semantic. The semantic implied in all C4 diagrams I've seen so far is a "call" semantic (arrow goes from caller to callee). Trigger should be used.

Regards,

JB
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Phil Beauvoir

Quote from: cybye on October 26, 2021, 21:41:57 PM...and using it as a menu a little harder, why you cannot drag and drop from the left into your diagram - sigh, "model, different, separation ... " it's accepted, it's accepted.


Because the "menu" is a diagram View and DnD works within the View not outside of it. There are plans to create a special View/Palette thing that would allow DnD of Specialised objects.
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cybye

QuoteI've had a look at your model and have two remarks:
  • Original C4 figures are hard to use in Archi because being custom images in full covering mode, users will have to make sure the concepts are of the right aspect ratio, or else parts will be missing. From a UX point of view this is far from perfect. So, as Simon Brown himself writes that C4 model doesn't prescribe any particular notation, I would suggest (and was planning) to use small custom icons on the top right corner.
Small icons are missing, yes. I will add some next. The charming and also, what I experienced, the convincing side is those visual elements are very similar to the C4 proposal and do not look like Archimate at first. So, keeping it as close as possible makes some sense. There are additional representations without any icons in the set to overcome the limitations mentioned, and yes these would benefit from some visual pep.

Quote
  • You can't use flow as this is not the right semantic. The semantic implied in all C4 diagrams I've seen so far is a "call" semantic (arrow goes from caller to callee). Trigger should be used.

True, this is because my early observations with the model show the arrows are rather used as flow. Might be because of the domain I'm working at time, which is not primarily Web or Microservices. I understand Flow semantics to be similar to Triggers but a little less specific. So it's sender to recipient often, and also this-then-that. Trigger would be more correct, agree.


Thanks for all your great work with Archi!
Chris 

Alberto

I should know this at this point, but seems I don't... 

How do I import the github code into Archi?  I tried Importing the folder.xml as an Open Exchange Model but that didn't work.


Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie

Hi,

Quote from: Alberto on October 27, 2021, 15:41:16 PMI should know this at this point, but seems I don't... 

You made my day  ;D

Quote from: Alberto on October 27, 2021, 15:41:16 PMHow do I import the github code into Archi?  I tried Importing the folder.xml as an Open Exchange Model but that didn't work.

You need coArchi (the collaboration plugin) and then your can import the model.

If you have any issue (e.g. due to corporate proxy restrictions) let me know, I'll import it for you and share it here as a native Archi file.

Regards,

JB
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Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

cybye

QuoteHi,

QuoteI should know this at this point, but seems I don't... 

You made my day  ;D

QuoteHow do I import the github code into Archi?  I tried Importing the folder.xml as an Open Exchange Model but that didn't work.

You need coArchi (the collaboration plugin) and then your can import the model.

If you have any issue (e.g. due to corporate proxy restrictions) let me know, I'll import it for you and share it here as a native Archi file.

Regards,

JB



:) few things here:

- you do not need to add any credentials for public github, but you must type something in the username field archi is asking for. leave password empty.

- if all works well, nothing happens. Meaning you will get errors, but if you dont't all worked well.

- you need to open Collaboration Workspace (Menu Collaboration, Toggle Collaboration Workspace, then search around in all tabs if it showed up somewhere.)

- there then, you can click on the model to open it.

straight forward!

Alberto

You need coArchi (the collaboration plugin)
Wait, all this time I thought Specializations was not yet supported by CoArchi  :o .  I just read this comment and it made MY day  ;D !!!

I have now installed 4.9.1 and coArchi 0.8 on my prod machine and Uber happy to start leveraging Specializations for our group.

UlfW

Many thanks for a great template !
The idea to use C4-notation in Archimatetool is great.

To my understanding the template is not entirely complete ? Ie not covering all parts of C4 (https://c4model.com/). See also https://github.com/plantuml-stdlib/C4-PlantUML

This implementation should also be linked to from somewhere under https://www.archimatetool.com/ or even managed under https://github.com/archimatetool/ ?

I could help with that work.

Regards
Ulf

DaveVint

Hi,

Just started to look at this since some of my teams are looking to use the C4 approach. With the 'palette' diagram panel, I can see that you copy/paste elements from the palette into your target diagram and tweak properties etc. How do we take advantage of the configured relations that are in the palette? In this case, the Label and properties have been set in the flow relation in palette model, but I can't see how to make those automatically be applied in the target model.

Cheers,

Dave